Lol. Dude isn't entirely wrong about David "Blondie" Booth. Still, that doesn't make the altar boy a bad pickup. He's been playing quite well. His speed and net determination is exactly what this team needs.

Maybe the Dude needs to start beating on Mason "The Natural Born Offense Killer" Raymond a little bit more. His go to move seems to be the patented puck-pounding, triple twist gainer belly flop into the ice... leading to the Kassian penalty and a fantastic last 15 seconds of the 3rd period.

Well I liked both new guys ..they will be good for us. Rd is correct, for a kid kassian can read a play. I think our style,veterans, team Philosophy will brimg out the potential, pahlsson is pretty good .

Could we do anymore to piss Calgary off..lofl

Hottest team this month was a bieksas post from finishing with a loss.

No excuses for this one. The team seemed to have their legs for most of the night.

The good...

Kassian. He was all over the boards after the puck, twice he got it free and immediately setup a solid one-timer from the point. He went to the net with confidence, and I loved that when he saw Henrik get the puck on the rush he went straight down the middle for a pass.....too bad Smith read it so well. Did a good job in his own end too, coming back hard. His game just gets even more impressive when you consider he left Buffalo today, got off the plane and went straight to warm-ups.

Bieksa. Solid game from Juice. Big hits, no real screw ups.

Schneider. Only reason this team got a single point tonight, despite his few bad reads while playing the puck he made some amazing saves turning away multiple Phoenix chances. If not for some terrible defensive coverage on the part of Edler and Salo Schneider would likely have posted a shutout.

Booth and Pahlsson both played good games. Pahlsson was very good at disrupting the Phoenix rush and backing checking in the slot. Booth played his usual game, going hard to the net and never taking a shift off.

The bad...

Tanev. Multiple gaffs tonight, just not a good game for the youngster. It doesn't help that he is paired with a guy who can't bail him out, although Rome did make a couple of very good defensive plays in front of Schneider and is not at fault for anything tonight. I'll go one further and say that Rome's play tonight almost landed him in the "good" column for me.

Kesler. He wasn't terrible, but there were several rushes where a pass would have been a much better choice than a poor angle back hander with a guy on his back that misses the net. He just didn't provide what he could have tonight.

Raymond. Missed several great chances to put a rebound towards the net while Smith was down and out. Instead, he didn't and turned and circled with the puck rather than chance missing on the backhand. By then both Smith and the defense had recovered. Having played in the NHL for a couple of seasons now, Raymond should now that when the goalie is down you have a better chance of scoring on a hot goalie with a low percentage backhand when the goalie is down and has no idea where the puck is than you do with a perimeter shot after both the goalie and defense have recovered. He killed the offense a few times tonight by not shooting when he should have. His shootout move was the worst spin-o-rama I have ever seen.

Offense. In general the Canucks cycled the perimeter, didn't take high percentage shots, and received very few second shot opportunities because too few players went to the net. It was a soft game and the attack was poorly executed. The first unit PP was abysmal to start out, and in general our PP never did anything until the last 30 seconds of the man advantage.

Everyone else. The defense was actually decent overall tonight, I liked the way we disrupted the Phoenix attack and thought they did a really good job of clearing pucks away to the corners after Schneider had made the first save or after he had gotten caught out of position. Whitney should never have gotten through to score that tying goal, even though Schneider's rebound control could have been much better, both Edler and Salo should have read Whitney's path and cut him off. Outside of that it was a decent game defensively.

Question, why do none of our shooters other than Burrows ever do what Boedeker did? Convincing shot fake and then to the side and in.

Roadtrip is done, we go home with 8 of a possible 12 points. Considering the way it started, and the back-to-back in Detroit/New Jersey, this is nothing but a success. Afterall, we are coming back in top spot.

RoyalDude wrote:You can tell right away that Kassian sees the ice a thousand times better than Booth, which might explain why Kassian replaced David 'Zero Hockey Sense' Booth on Keslers line toward the end of the 2nd period. If I was David 'Turnover the Puck to the Opposing Team' Booth I'd feel a little threatened by this Kassian fella.

Impressed with Kassian's on ice vision and playing with his head up instead of buried in the ice like David 'I can't pass' Booth.

Who set up the puck for Kesler to one-time it in the slot? It was David "I can't pass" Booth...

Meds wrote:No excuses for this one. The team seemed to have their legs for most of the night.

The good...now, Raymond should now that when the goalie is down you have a better chance of scoring on a hot goalie with a low percentage backhand when the goalie is down and has no idea where the puck is than you do with a perimeter shot after both the goalie and defense have recovered. He killed the offense a few times tonight by not shooting when he should have. His shootout move was the worst spin-o-rama I have ever seen.

Offense. In general the Canucks cycled the perimeter, didn't take high percentage shots, and received very few second shot opportunities because too few players went to the net. It was a soft game and the attack was poorly executed. The first unit PP was abysmal to start out, and in general our PP never did anything until the last 30 seconds of the man advantage..

One more in the "good" column - the overtime.Shots were 5 - zip for the Canucks - they looked dominant in the extra frame.

You putting your Bill Guerin hopefulness aside unlike the rest here and seeing the light on David Booth for who he really is and why the Panthers ousted him with a 3rd round pick sweetener for a pair of wonky geriatrics? He's got one tool David Booth, cheat at the blueline, Pavel Bure style, waiting for a breakout pass from the hard defensive work of his teamates and skate like the wind outside the D-man and drive to the net with the puck without having to look for teamates and stickhandle. That's about it in a nutshell.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

rats19 wrote:Well I liked both new guys ..they will be good for us. Rd is correct, for a kid kassian can read a play.

I was really pleased to see that Kassian possesses a head for the game, made some smart plays that you would never see from Booth. I guarantee you, in time, Kassian will pass Booth on the Winger depth chart cause of his smarts.

"I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? - Plastics." - The Graduate

Kassian's speed exceeded my expectations. His puck handling / sense & board play appeared about on par with Bitz. We’ll see how it goes as the adrenalin wears off & he gets more comfortable with the guys.

Pahlsson showed flashes of a guy who is very solid on the puck, but it's too early to say how much of his 2007 game remains.

He looked good. The speed, hockey-sense, hands and forecheck was there. He made a few nice passes in the offensive zone, including a confident drop pass in tight and finding the open man on the point as the back checkers were converging on the puck and heading down-low. Other than a couple of chances he was involved in, one play in the 1st period really shook out for me. He was skating through the neutral zone when he was given a hard, possibly wobbly saucer pass and he skillfully nabbed it out of the air and brought it down on his tape onto the ice without any hesitation in his skating and barrelled into the offensive zone.

I liked that he didn't drop the gloves with Biznasty in the first period because Kassian isn't an enforcer and there is no need to get into useless fights with enforcers early in games when the fight has no precursor and is meaningless. His job is to be an offensive and physical force who stick up for his teammates and makes life tough for the opposition. He shouldn't be playing down to the behest of a player who skates less than 8 minutes a game. Kassian will get into plenty of fights, but he shouldn't waste his time with meaningless ones.